Hunger: More than a million people get supplies from food banks

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Women get food at a table in Frankfurt am Main

Photo: Boris Roessler/ DPA

According to an estimate by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), more than a million people in Germany buy food from food banks.

The institute put the number at just under 1.1 million on Wednesday and referred to a survey from 2020.

According to the DIW survey, three quarters of the people who use food banks live on basic security.

Many are at risk of poverty and have health problems.

Single parents and couples with children use the boards particularly frequently.

A quarter of the people who benefited from the panels are children.

The food banks themselves are now assuming well over two million customers.

Rising prices and the needs of refugees led to a high rush to the issuing offices.

Around 960 food banks nationwide distribute food that can no longer be sold to the needy.

Several of the boards had warned a few months ago that they were reaching their limit due to the increased demand.

At the same time, a debate about reducing food waste is taking place across Europe.

Spain had announced that it wanted to ban food waste by law.

kig/dpa